WED AM News: ‘24 RNC organizers expect bookings for Milwaukee venues, restaurants to pick up in coming weeks; Group Health Cooperative of South Central WI reports data breach

April 10, 2024

— With the 2024 Republican National Convention in Downtown Milwaukee less than 100 days away, organizers say area businesses can soon expect to see increased interest in booking space.

A New York Times article noted some area venues and restaurants had concerns about a dearth of bookings so far for the July convention, while venues in Chicago for the Democratic National Convention are filling up fast.

Anne Hathaway, chair of the 2024 RNC Committee on Arrangements, told reporters during a media tour of Milwaukee facilities Monday that’s likely because Democrats have known who the nominee will be throughout the planning process. For Republicans, it’s only been clear for about a month that former President Donald Trump would secure the nomination.

She noted hotels have now just been set for delegates, while allied groups have yet to have hotels locked in. And media outlets in town this week for a convention preview will also likely use the opportunity to plan their events.

“We’re very confident that the restaurant owners, the venues are going to see the return on investment of having the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee,” Hathaway said.

She said organizers are working to provide as many opportunities for delegates, allied groups and media to see as much of Milwaukee as possible.

“Our commitment when we made the decision to come to Milwaukee, was to take Milwaukee to the world and bring the world to Milwaukee, and I think we will achieve that goal,” Hathaway said.

Convention activities will be centered around three venues, with the main program happening at the Fiserv Forum and large spaces for media at the Panther Arena and the Baird Center.

As a first for a Republican National Convention, a prominent space is being reserved for local media. The space is planned to be located on media row in the Panther Arena. Media row in the past has featured live broadcasts from talk show hosts, podcasters and others, and is a focal point for visits from campaign surrogates and delegates.

The impetus for the Wisconsin media space was Wisconsin Watch’s Matt DeFour, who reached out to Wisconsin outlets and convention planners with the idea and spearheaded planning efforts. So far, dozens of Wisconsin outlets have expressed interest in participating in the local media space.

See more on the upcoming convention at the WisPolitics Battleground Wisconsin page.

— Foreign hackers earlier this year stole sensitive health information from Group Health Cooperative of South Central Wisconsin’s network, the co-op announced.

In late January, the organization’s IT department flagged an unauthorized access of its online systems and moved to secure its network, resulting in several systems going offline. The incident was reported to the FBI and the co-op hired outside “cyber incident response” specialists to restore its systems, verify security and investigate the attack.

The hackers had unsuccessfully tried to encrypt the system, according to today’s release, but were able to copy data including protected health information.

DJ Vogel, a cybersecurity expert with Madison-based Ghostscale, says encryption can be used as a ransomware tool that seeks to establish control over the target’s valuable information.

“The attacker isn’t necessarily actually taking the data off my laptop, what they’re doing is they’re running a program on my laptop so it uses my resources on my laptop to encrypt everything … I can now no longer access that because they deleted the original data on my laptop and replaced it with encrypted data,” he said today in an interview.

While the hackers weren’t able to encrypt the system, the information they copied could include names, addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, dates of birth and death, social security numbers, member numbers, and Medicare and/or Medicaid numbers, the release shows.

The co-op says a “foreign ransomware gang” reached out to claim responsibility for the attack and stealing the data, but it “has no indication that information has been used or further disclosed.” GHC-SCW says its working to limit the impact of the breach by working with the FBI and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

To prevent further hacks, the co-op says it’s strengthening existing protections, data backup, user training and cybersecurity awareness, among other measures.

Vogel says the release is a “pretty typical announcement” for cybersecurity incidents, but the scope of the breach may not yet be fully known.

“The tricky part is, sometimes logs might not indicate to us all that we want to see,” he said. “So logs might not last for as long as we want them to… That could be an actual situation where they don’t have the details yet.”

He also noted federal HIPAA laws require health organizations to disclose data breaches when they hit around 500 records disclosed.

“So as it stands, if 498 records were potentially disclosed, they wouldn’t have to do a release like this,” he said. “They still could … but generally whenever we see one of these releases that has anything to do with protected health information, that PHI that we see referenced, we can assume that it’s at least over 500 records.”

See more in the release, and listen to a recent podcast with Vogel.

For more of the most relevant health care news, reports on groundbreaking research in Wisconsin, links to top stories and more, sign up today for the free daily Health Care Report from WisPolitics and WisBusiness.com.

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— Municipal property tax revaluations have more than doubled over the past few years as the housing market has steadily grown, according to a new Forward Analytics report.

But the report also notes those whose homes go through a revaluation won’t necessarily see a property tax increase. Several factors will influence that, including whether the value of their home rose at a higher rate relative to other properties in the municipality.

Communities completed 210 revaluations in 2023, compared to 94 in 2020. Likewise, the Department of Revenue has issued more than twice as many notices to municipalities that their property assessments are off by more than 10% of the market value. The agency sent 335 notices in 2023, compared to 165 in 2020.

The report notes the increase in DOR compliance notices is likely “due in large part to the strong housing markets.”

Some property owners who see their property’s market value increase while their assessed value is stagnant may be underpaying their share of the municipal tax levy

“The primary reason for change is almost always increases or decreases in property tax levies from the local municipality, school district, county, or technical college,” the report notes.

Without a tax levy increase, the tax rate on a property that sees its value increase could decrease. Similarly, if part of the housing market increases faster than another segment, the share of the levy paid by property owners in the market segment that grew the least could also cause a decrease in property taxes.

“If the property tax levy is unchanged, those with below average increases will experience a tax decline while those with above average increases will see their property tax rise,” the report adds.

For the three years prior to 2020, the number of municipalities doing revaluations was fairly flat, with 93 in 2017, 84 in 2018 and 88 in 2019.

However, the number of noncompliance notices DOR issued during the three years prior 2020 steadily rose from 56 in 2017, to 87 in 2018 and to 120 in 2019.

— Developers and municipalities can now apply for funding through the Infrastructure Access Loan program, Gov. Tony Evers announced.

The program received $525 million in funding from the last biennial budget, according to yesterday’s release. It provides loans to cover the cost of installing, replacing, upgrading or improving public infrastructure for workforce housing or senior housing.

Borrowers can apply for up to 20% of the total development cost for residential housing and related infrastructure at a 3% interest rate or 1% percent for areas with fewer than 10,000 residents or for senior housing.

The Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority is administering funding for the program.

WHEDA CEO and Executive Director Elmer Moore Jr. says it “gives us yet another opportunity to add much-needed affordable housing throughout the state by helping developers and municipalities reduce the cost of development — a price that is normally passed on to working individuals, families, and seniors in their rent or mortgage.”

See the release.

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